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Court: Calif. erred in new lethal injection regs
Legal News |
2013/06/01 18:05
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Executions in California will remain suspended after a state appeals court ruled that corrections officials made several "substantial" procedural errors when they adopted new lethal injection rules.
The 1st District Court of Appeals said the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to explain, as required by state law, why it was switching from a three-drug injection method to a single drug.
The court's opinion, which affirmed a lower court ruling, also said the agency misled the public by not providing the documents and information it used to reach its decision.
Corrections spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said in an email that the agency was reviewing the ruling.
"In the meantime, at the governor's direction, CDCR is continuing to develop proposed regulations for a single-drug protocol in order to ensure that California's laws on capital punishment are upheld," Hoffman said.
California has not executed an inmate since 2006, when a federal judge halted the practice, finding that the three-drug mixture amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The state was ordered to redo its capital punishment system.
Since then, California has built a new death chamber at San Quentin State Prison and trained a new team to carry out executions. |
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Chicago man pleads guilty in NY hacking case
Court Center |
2013/06/01 18:05
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A self-described anarchist and "hacktivist" from Chicago pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges he illegally accessed computer systems of law enforcement agencies and government contractors.
"As part of each of these hacks, I took and decimated confidential information stored on computer systems websites used by each of the entities," Jeremy Hammond told a judge in federal court in Manhattan. "For each of these hacks, I knew what I was doing was against the law."
Prosecutors had alleged the cyber-attacks were carried out by Anonymous, the loosely organized worldwide hacking group that stole confidential information, defaced websites and temporarily put some victims out of business. Hammond was caught last year with the help of Hector Xavier Monsegur, a famous hacker known as Sabu who later helped law enforcement infiltrate Anonymous.
A criminal complaint had accused Hammond of pilfering information of more than 850,000 people via his attack on Austin, Texas-based Strategic Forecasting Inc., a publisher of geopolitical information also known as Stratfor. He also was accused of using the credit card numbers of Stratfor clients to make charges of at least $700,000. He allegedly bragged he even snared the personal data of a former U.S. vice president and one-time CIA director. |
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Court Upholds Rifle Sales Reporting Requirement
Legal News |
2013/06/01 18:04
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A federal appeals court panel has unanimously upheld an Obama administration requirement that dealers in southwestern border states report when customers buy multiple high-powered rifles.
The firearms industry trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and two Arizona gun sellers argued that the administration overstepped its legal authority in the 2011 regulation, which applies to gun sellers in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
But the three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the requirement was "unambiguously" authorized under the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The challengers argued that the requirement unlawfully creates a national firearms registry, but the court said because it applies to a small percentage of gun dealers, it doesn't come close to creating one. |
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Court: US can keep bin Laden photos under wraps
Legal News |
2013/05/23 18:45
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A federal appeals court is backing the U.S. government’s decision not to release photos and video taken of Osama bin Laden during and after a raid in which the terrorist leader was killed by U.S. commandos.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia turned down an appeal Tuesday from Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the images.
The court said that the CIA properly withheld publication of the images. The court concluded that the photos used to conduct facial recognition analysis of bin Laden could reveal classified intelligence methods — and that images of bin Laden’s burial at sea could trigger violence against American citizens. |
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Ex-South Tahoe cop guilty of witness tampering
Headline News |
2013/05/23 18:45
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A former South Lake Tahoe police officer faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of witness tampering and obstruction.
U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner said that 44-year-old John Poland entered his plea Wednesday after admitting to interfering with a federal investigation of a gang member at Lake Tahoe.
A grand jury indictment said he persuaded the gang member's girlfriend to conceal and destroy evidence in June 2011. A few months later, Wagner says Poland tampered with that witness in an investigation into his own conduct as well as that of the gang member. |
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Appeals court allows capital retrial of Wolfe
Top Legal News |
2013/05/21 18:45
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A federal appeals court will allow a capital murder case to proceed against an accused drug kingpin from northern Virginia.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond overturned a federal judge in Norfolk who had ordered a halt to the prosecution of Justin Wolfe and his immediate release.
That judge said misconduct by prosecutors in Prince William County made it impossible for Wolfe to get a fair trial.
But a majority on the appellate court disagreed. The judges ruled that a new trial can be done fairly. A dissenting judge said the misconduct was so bad that freeing Wolfe was the only proper outcome.
Wolfe was sent to death row in 2002 for a drug-related murder, but his original conviction and sentence were overturned. |
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IMF head Lagarde in court in fraud probe
Lawyer Blogs |
2013/05/20 18:45
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International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde is facing questions at a special Paris court Thursday over her role in the 400 million euro ($520 million) pay-off to a controversial businessman when she was France's finance minister.
The court hearing threatens to sully the reputations of both Lagarde and France. The payment was made to well-connected entrepreneur Bernard Tapie as part of a private arbitration process to settle a dispute with state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais over the botched sale of Adidas in the 1990s. It is seen by many in France as an example of the cozy relationship between big money and big power in France.
Lagarde has earned praise for her negotiating skills as managing director of the IMF through Europe's debt crisis and is seen as a trailblazer for women leaders. Her decision to let the Adidas dispute go to private arbitration rather than be settled in the courts has drawn criticism, and French lawmakers asked magistrates to investigate.
Lagarde, smiling at reporters, left her Paris apartment Thursday morning and appeared at a special court that handles cases involving government ministers. She has denied wrongdoing.
At the time of the payment, Tapie was close to then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was Lagarde's boss. Critics have said the deal was too generous to Tapie at the expense of the French state, and that the case shouldn't have gone to a private arbitration authority because it involved a state-owned bank. |
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